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Episode 805: How Much is That World Series in the Window?
Date January 27, 2016 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about Yoenis Cespedes’s contract, relievers winning awards, how much it costs to buy a World Series, prospect comparisons, and more. Topics * Differences between accepted and offered contracts * Relievers winning Cy Young and MVP Awards * Eric Gagne * Guaranteeing a World Series win * Third time through the order penalty * Prospect comparisons Intro Everclear, "I Will Buy You a New Life" Outro The Replacements, "I'll Buy " Banter Ben and Sam missed a recording day because they were finishing up their book, The Only Rule Is It Has to Work. Email Questions * Dylan (New York): "With Yoenis Cespedes turning down a reported $110 million offer from the Nationals in exchange for the Mets' $75 million offer I got to thinking, what's the largest difference between the cash amount a player wound up accepting versus the one they reportedly turned down (Cespedes is $35 million). Has there ever been a bigger difference? I presume this is not play indexable and thus may require a bit of digging." * Andrew: "I was reading the Hardball Times Annual (2016) recently and I got to the essay about the 1984 Tigers. What struck me in particular was when he pointed out that Hernandez, the team's newly acquired closer, won not only the AL Cy Young but also the AL MVP award. While he had a very fine year (140 IP, 1.92 ERA, 2.58 FIP) he was far from the MVP. His 3.2 Fangraphs war doesn't crack the top 30 for pitchers and Cal Ripken should have run away with the MVP. It's hard to imagine if a reliever had this same season even sniffing MVP first place votes. Do you think that this will ever happen again? A full time relief pitcher winning the Cy Young and the MVP in the same season? If so, what sort of season would it take? Would it be possible to see this sort of player coming? Like being drafted first overall or would the inevitably be a fluke conversion a la Mariano Rivera or Wade Davis?" * Zack: "In Episode 801 Ben was talking abut Tigers owner Mike Ilitch and said 'They have an owner who said he doesn't care about money he wants to win the world series' but there's a limit obviously because they're not running the highest payroll in baseball. So how much money would it actually take to buy a world championship? Let's set the bar at willing to bet all your possessions. What's the minimum amount of money do you think it'd take to be certain next year is the year? Would it change if you could pick a specific year some time down the road?" * Leo: "I've been reading a lot of prospect lists recently and I noticed that comparisons to former prospects is rarely used as a criterion when ranking. For example if 80% of players with similar prospect profiles to X found success in the majors shouldn't that be a good sign that X will be successful in the majors too? I was wondering how accurate you think prospects comparisons are for judging a player's future success, and if so why aren't they used more often?" Play Index * Sam uses the Play Index to examine pitchers who have very high or low third time through the order penalties, and he and Ben wonder if that should influence which teams sign these players. * Since 2011 there are 91 pitchers who have thrown 175 or more innings against batters facing them for the third time. * Clayton Kershaw has the best WHIP+ the third time through the order. * In Sam's sample left-handed pitchers were better the third time through the order, but he isn't convinced this is significant. * Dylan Gee is the worst pitcher the third time through the order relative to his overall performance. Notes * Ben and Sam agree that if they were players they would rather have an earlier than later contract opt-out. * Willie Hernandez was traded in May of 1983 and would go on to win the MVP in 1984. * Last season Ken Giles allowed 9 unearned runs which is more than Wade Davis allowed all season (7). * Russel Carleton found that in order to have a 50/50 chance at winning the World Series a team would have to be a 113-49 true talent team. * Sam guesses that it would cost about $350-400 million payroll to guarantee a World Series title. * It takes about 8 seasons for a starting pitcher to gather enough innings to find out if the third time through the penalty is real for them. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 805: How Much is That World Series in the Window? Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes